106 RAMBLES OF A NATURALIST. 



town, and on the 8th of May it stopped, after having 

 destroyed 300 houses, several palaces and churches, 

 and the garden of the Benedictines.* On the 13th 

 of the same month a small stream flowed over the 

 rampart to the south of the town near the Church 

 della Palma, but a wall of dry stones which had been 

 hastily constructed, sufficed to arrest its further pro- 

 gress. The Catanians were less fortunate some days 

 afterwards, when a new current invaded the castle, 

 filled up its fosses, and speedily reached the level of 

 the ramparts. A dyke was immediately constructed 

 to arrest it, but on the llth of June the lava crossed 

 the wall, and flowed through the town in the direc- 

 tion of the Convent of the Fathers of the Monte 

 Santo. Here a new barrier was opposed to it, which 

 succeeded in arresting it, and thus preserved one of 

 the finest parts of Catania. From this period the 

 lava ceased any longer to threaten the city, and flowed 

 in a direct course into the sea. 



The eruption, however, continued for some time 

 longer, and Lord Winchelsea tells us that the cinders 

 fell at Catania, and as far as thirty miles out at sea, 

 with such violence and intensity as to be injurious 

 and painful to the eyes. Nevertheless the violence 

 of the volcano was now exhausted. After the 15th 

 of July, it appears to have been limited merely to 

 the ejection of cinders, scoriae, and fragments of lava, 



* The present garden of the Benedictines has been made up of 

 earth brought at a great expense from a distance to cover this lava, 

 which rises in the present day like an irregular rampart within a few 

 feet of the walls of this monastery, which is undoubtedly the hand- 

 somest building in Catania. 



